Mr Monk Goes Fishing
by Pastrinator64
Summary: There has been a murder at the nearby San Pedro Fish Market. As they inspect the crime-scene, all of their clues lead to a relative very near to the victim, this suspect having a motive and evidence to boot. But as Monk inspects the scene, he thinks otherwise, not believing their one and only witness, who was drunk at the time. He thinks that there are some red herrings involved.
1. Chapter 1: Murder At The Market

_Mr. Monk Goes Fishing_

_By: Pastrinator64_

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_Chapter 1: Murder At The Market_

Molly walked down the slippery street, her shoes squeaking. She looked up into the night's twinkling stars and sighed, admiring their beauty. She loved coming to the seafood market at night to categorize all the seafood for later exports, and it was so much easier in the quiet nighttime, the lack of noise was enjoyable for her, even with the fishy smell in the air.

She stopped and pulled out the small notepad and pencil from out of her shirt pocket and headed on down to her first stand where they kept fresh clams, oysters and mussels on display. Molly stepped down the first row, categorizing every one of the crustaceans he walked past until she was finished, then she moved to the next row of stands near the back. She continued this pattern, making sure to get every single shellfish.

But at that moment, a dark figure walked silently through the stands nearby. They could see Molly walking up and down the rows of the next-door shellfish stands, illuminated by the nearby streetlamp. The figure walked closer, picking up a large fishhook and a turquoise swordfish, trying to remain as silent as possible. Molly's back was to the figure, so they approached quickly and silently, their large fishhook raised, the many glistening barbs gleaming in the streetlamp's light. At the last second, Molly turned to look at them and she said,

"I'm sorry, but we're... What are you—?"

But they reached forward with a hard jerk, and the fishhook was punctured deep into her neck, just above the collarbone, soaking her neck with a mixture of fish slime and blood. She screamed shrilly, but the figure clamped a hand over her nose and mouth, pulling her to the slippery ground. But, Molly, being as strong as she was, wrenched the hand from her face and continued to scream for help and in immense pain. She rammed the figure backwards, and they both tripped into the nearby twenty-gallon lobster tank, and it tipped over and off of the table, shattering on the ground, sending shards of glass everywhere. Molly and her attacker stumbled to the ground on top of each other, and she continued to scream as loud as she could, hoping someone would come to her aid.

The plump kick-knack shopkeeper many stands down heard the screams and stumbled out the front doors of his greasy shack, his eyes bloodshot and his body reeking of beer. He'd been alone in his shop, drinking cheap liquor to forget about how ugly his life was and how poor he was off of selling cheap knick-knacks. As he stumbled out into the fishy air outside, he flicked on his flashlight and shouted drunkenly,

"Who's 'at?! Huh?!" he thundered, his flashlight waving around.

His clumsy, fat fingers slipped and the flashlight dropped to the ground with a clatter, but he continued to shake his head in all directions to find where the scream was coming from. A few seconds later the screaming stopped, and he grunted, bending over his gigantic belly to grab the flashlight, and walked off in the general direction of the scream. But then, just after the screaming ended, he heard a woman shout this,

"S-Sanders! NO! Ackckcccccck!"

Then the choking noise stopped and all was silent. The fat shopkeeper walked down the slippery street, tripping every few seconds, and he staggered past over twenty different fish-stands before he reached the two crustacean ones. He stopped by the second one, and when he got a look at the scene before him, even in his drugged state he received the shock of his life. Molly sat there up against one of the displays, a blue swordfish skewered through her stomach and into the wood behind her, pinning her there. There was a stab wound just above her collarbone, which was bleeding quickly, and showed no signs of stopping. The lobster tank had been tipped over, so the three live lobsters were crawling around on the glass-covered ground. He lowered his flashlight and to himself he muttered,

"Oh my God..."

**Woohoo! First chapter! If you plan on seeing how this one turns out, don't worry about the short chapter-length, the first chapter is only the murder scene, so that's the shortest it'll ever be. Anyway, stay tuned if you want to see how Adrian Monk handles the case, starting in the upcoming Chapter 2! See you then! :D**


	2. Chapter 2: The Two Lelands

**Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter from Mr. Monk Goes Fishing. Sorry for the delay, I've been working a lot on my other story, which has been getting a lot of attention lately, so I haven't been able to get around to writing more for this one. Anyway, I'm going to reply to any reviews I get from now on, and this time I had one, and one is okay with me, cuz' we can all agree it's better than zero!**

Replies To Reviews

**Demi3456: **I've been trying to, and like I said before, I've been preoccupied with another story. But here I am now!

**Alright then! Let's get back to the story!**

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_Chapter 2: The Two Lelands_

Adrian Monk sat at the dinner table of the Fleming residence looking through his hand of cards. He was just about to start a game of Go-Fish with Sherona and Benji. He looked up at Sherona and said with a gesture,

"Ladies first."

Sherona looked over her cards and then replied,

"Do you have any fours?"

Her question was directed at Adrian, but he shook his head.

"Go-Fish."

It was Benji's turn, and he too turned to Adrian. But before he could say anything, Adrian spoke.

"No."

"But how—" protested Benji.

"You were about to ask me if I had any fives. You always ask for the card you have the least of and... And I remember how the cards were put away last time when we were playing war a few weeks ago... Then I remembered how the deck was shuffled and dealed just now. You got two aces and two eights, plus only one five, so that's what you needed."

With the looks Adrian received from both Benji and Sherona he quickly added,

"Sorry."

Sherona slammed her hand of cards on the table with a frustrated expression forming across her face.

"See, Adrian, this is exactly why it's no fun to play when you're here. Can't you try to enjoy yourself without ruining it for everyone else?"

The question really seemed to rack Adrian's brain, because all he could say was,

"Oh, um..."

Just then the phone rang in the kitchen. Sherona sighed and stood up to go answer it. She lifted the earpiece up and said,

"Hello?"

A few seconds later, Sherona came back to the dinner table to see Adrian straightening the pile of cards sitting between him and Benji.

"Adrian," said Sherona.

He continued to straighten the pile without looking up.

"Adrian!" she said, louder this time.

He looked up at Sherona that time. She gestured to the phone in her hand.

"It's the Captain; he wants to talk to you."

Adrian took a tissue from his shirt pocket and took the phone. He held it next to his ear and said,

"Hello?"

A few seconds went by with Sherona and Benji watching him.

"Murder?" said Adrian quietly.

A few more seconds went by. Sherona noticed that with each passing second Adrian's face become more horrified.

"Oh no, Captain, I... I can't..."

His face was screwed up in agony, and he made a disgusted sound in his throat. Sherona cut in and said,

"What'd he say?"

Adrian spoke into the phone again, his face still scrunched together.

"Yes... Yes sir. I'll be there. Goodbye."

Adrian walked into the kitchen and put the phone back on its spot on the counter. As he was walking back with a look of pure horror on his face, Sherona approached him looking both curious and concerned.

"What'd he say?" she repeated.

Adrian swallowed hard and looked at her almost pleadingly.

"Before I tell you, please don't make me go."

"I heard murder, it MUST be important."

Adrian looked down and murmured something too quiet to be heard. He cleared his throat again and said a bit louder,

"There's been a murder at (insert name of seafood market here) in (insert location here). He asked me to come and check it out."

Sherona's eyes widened and a smile started to creep across her lips.

"You, in a SEAFOOD market?" she laughed a little, and Adrian turned to stare.

"What?"

"It's just... I can't see you in a seafood market." she stopped laughing and said, "Alright, we should probably go, then."

"B-but you promised you wouldn't make me go..." protested Adrian.

"No, you said that, Adrian."

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The next day they headed out in Sherona's minivan with Benji left to stay with Sherona's sister Gale's house. In a matter of several long hours they reached the (insert name of seafood market here) in (insert location here). The seafood market itself was quite large, and it bordered a large canal leading to the Pacific Ocean. There were fish, cephalopods and crustaceans all over, all of different shapes, sizes, tastes, smells, and texture. Sherona found it quite amazing while Adrian found it quite horrifying. He couldn't stand the fishy smell lingering in the air, the crowds of strangers all around him, and even the shouts of people in their stands. It also didn't help that the slippery ground had about a billion cracks in it. Adrian was practically skipping wherever he went.

They had come from the back end of the market, so they had to move through crowds of people carrying fish for about six hundred feet or so, basically past thirtyish seafood stands. Finally they reached the crustacean stand second from the front. Yellow crossing tape blocked off the second and third stands. The second one was still stocked full of lobsters and crabs, and the other one was for rare and exotic sea animals. Captain Leland Stottlemeyer and Lieutenant Randy Disher were standing with two others policemen behind the yellow tape.

As Adrian and Sherona were approaching, the Captain turned around, grinned and said,

"Hey, Monk, you came."

Adrian jerked his head to the side to relieve the stress like he always would, and then said,

"Reluctantly."

The Captain turned back to the crime scene before him. The was a white outline of a woman slumped up against on the hermit crab shelf behind her. By the outline of the stomach there was a hole in the wood, which was formed about three inches deep. Glass was scattered over the area as well, and there was a short table tipped over to the side, one of the legs snapped in half. When Monk saw that the other three legs were intact he started to get that feeling he did when things weren't the way they should. But then again, he couldn't do anything; it was part of the crime scene.

The Captain pointed to their left at the other stand that was blocked off by the tape where the exotic sea creatures were.

"The killer sneaks up from the shadows, grabs a large ten-barb fishhook and a swordfish. Very medieval, in my opinion, what happened next." he guided his finger from the exotic sea creature stand to the crustacean one they stood inside. "Killer sneaks up on the victim, stabs her with the ten-barb fishhook just above the collarbone, then either she or the killer knocks over the lobster tank sitting on that table," he pointed to the table with the one broken leg and Adrian got all twitchy again. "And then stabs the swordfish through her stomach and through the wood of the stand behind her."

As Adrian was focusing on the table he continued to talk to Stottlemeyer.

"Who was the victim?"

"Molly Darry, age 34, works here at the market. She came here at 1:00 AM to categorize all the seafood—it's her summer job—and apparently there was someone waiting for her. We found her body this morning at 3:37, there was a security guard who came around that time because he heard someone shouting."

Adrian couldn't contain himself much longer and started towards the table with his hand outstretched.

"Any witnesses?"

The Captain turned around to face the slippery street and pointed to a plump, unshaven man talking to a couple of police officers nearby. His eyes were swollen and dry, like he'd stayed up all night.

"Just one. His name's Leland Cavaran—as you could imagine, there's been confusing between us two all morning with people trying to get our attention. He's 41 years old and also works in the market. He runs the Quickknack shop with all those cheap knickknacks twenty stands down the street." as Adrian was observing the plump Leland's actions while he was talking with the two policemen, he noticed his dry, swollen eyes again, and also that he was swaying. Then he gave a small cough, spitting on the ground. Adrian's stomach twisted, and then he turned away to look at the Captain.

"This man was drunk last night." he said.

Lieutenant Disher spoke for the first time that morning.

"Yep, Leland was up late drinking cheap liquor, said he was down on money and his family had all left him, so he was trying to get rid of his misery."

"Was he drunk when he witnessed the murder?" asked Adrian, putting a hand back on the one-broken-leg table.

"Well," said Randy, looking back at Leland Cavaran. "He said he didn't exactly see it. He heard Molly screaming, though. He was out cold, sitting asleep in the Quickknack shop when he heard Molly screaming. He says he remembered walking outside with his flashlight and hearing the screams over and over. Then he said that some lady—he was guessing the same one who had been screaming—screamed out the words, "S-Sanders! NO! Ackckcccccck!" and then the screams stopped. He didn't remember much after that, except that he ended up at the scene and saw Molly skewered with a swordfish with blood everywhere. Then he claims he fell unconscious from either shock or the drugs and woke up with a swordfish in one hand and that ten-barb hook in the other. There was a guard that was shaking him awake, and he claimed he didn't do anything to her."

Adrian was about to try and pick up the broken leg piece and attempt fixing it back onto the table that used to hold the lobster tank when Stottlemeyer pointed at him and said,

"Monk, don't touch. We don't want your prints showing up on anything."

He pulled his hand back, but kept his eyes on the table. Then out of his peripheral vision he saw the white outline of Molly where she had fallen. He walked back toward it, looking at both the outline and the glass scattered on the floor. Then he looked to the table that was tipped over next to him with the one broken leg.

"So, you say they got in a struggle after she was stabbed above the collarbone?"

He looked from the table to the glass and said,

"How many lobsters were in the tank?"

"Three." said Stottlemeyer.

Adrian kept looking from the broken table to the glass. He pointed to the table that was tipped over and said,

"This table held the lobster tank, and when the struggle occurred the top right leg broke, and it tipped over." he looked back at the glass over the floor around the white outline of Molly. "But all the glass is over here, three feet from the table. From the looks of the tank I'd say it's twenty gallons, which usually could hold around four fifteen-pound lobsters safely. But... There were only three, and the glass is over here..."

Adrian started to think about what he was looking at, pacing back and forth like he usually did. Then he stopped and muttered,

"I think that this woman was killed over a lobster." everyone was watching him. "But that still doesn't explain why the glass is all over here when the tank should have fallen and shattered over here in the direction of where the table broke and fell..."

Everyone was quiet for a moment, but then Stottlemeyer broke the silence and walked towards Adrian.

"Look, Monk, we've talked with Leland over there a couple of times this morning. He's even taken a lie detector test, he's clean. We know he wasn't the one who killed her, he must be telling the truth about what he heard and saw. His claims lead to another person who could've been involved."

Randy grinned like he always did when he was about to start explaining something important.

"Yeah, we did some research based on the words that he heard Molly scream when she was getting murdered and found some interesting stuff. That name she shouted, Sanders, it belongs to her ex-husband Jon Sanders. They have been in marriage counseling for about ten years now, and as you could imagine, there were fights between them almost every night. Jon used to work at this market too, he was the sardine-packaging man—I'd quit if I were that too. We suspect that Jon must've gotten sick of his wife and killed her. She had been threatening him for the past year about sending in some secret tapes to the rest of his family of him doing adulterous things with other women that he'd met during their marriage. He couldn't risk the family shame, and we suppose that this was the easier decision for him."

Adrian looked past the police tape to the bloodshot-eyed Mr. Cavaran, and then back to the Captain.

"But Captain, the man was intoxicated, what he heard could have been something completely different. It might've not even been a last name at all." he said, raising his hands up in protest.

The Captain shook his head and said,

"Monk, like I said, he's taken the lie detector test, so he's not lying, at least. This is all we have on the case. That's why I called you up. I figured you might be able to help things become clearer on the case."

Adrian looked at the exotic sea creatures stand next to the one they stood under and walked towards it slowly, getting a good look at it. He pointed to the first stand to his right and said,

"The swordfish was here, there's no other fish on the table."

Sherona spoke again for the first time since they got there.

"Well, maybe someone just bought some things."

"No, the swordfish was definitely here. When fish markets take inventory, it's always right after they've received a shipping of goods, so no one would have bought anything, and the killer wouldn't have risked making noise by moving the items."

Adrian looked up at the ropes and hooks dangling above and gave a little shudder once noticing the fish slime covering them. A bit of leftover fish bait fell off a hook and landed on the shoulder of his beige jacket, and he nearly crumpled to the ground. He looked desperately at Sherona, his eyes wide with horror.

"Sherona..." he said weakly, holding out a shaking hand. "Wipe..."

Sherona rolled her eyes and took out another wipe. Adrian took it and slowly picked up the chunk of fish gut on his shoulder, chucking it as fast as possible once it was off his shoulder. He continued to scrub his shoulder with the wipe until he was satisfied—which happened to be three minutes of wiping later. When he was finally finished he handed the wipe back to Sherona and murmured,

"Thanks..."

He looked back at the scene before him, looks up at the fishhooks again. There were only twenty ten-barb fishhooks considering their huge size. They all looked brand new, while everything else was covered in fish slime. He noticed this and muttered,

"Why are these the only hooks that are clean? Everything else is... Ugh, disgusting... But these look immaculate."

He reached up and tapped one with his fingernail, making it sway a little. Just out of habit he started tapping the other ones until finally the Captain called out with,

"Monk!" Adrian turned around and looked at the Captain. "How about we go and visit Molly's ex-husband first? We might as well see what we can find out from him."

Adrian kept looking back at where the swordfish used to be and then to the ten-barb fishhooks, still thinking, but then turned around the second later and said,

"Okay."

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**There sure are some things out of place, aren't there? Well, I hope you thought the chapter was interesting, because I'll check back as soon as possible with chapter two! Goodbye...**


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